On Saturday Toney and I were walking through JCPenney, and they were BLASTING high-energy dance Christmas music. Is it some kind of jokey “Christmas in July” promotion, I presume? Please tell me they’re not genuinely starting with that shit already? It can’t be, right? And why all the terrible 12 year old girl music everywhere? Christmas, or otherwise? It sounds like it was created in a laboratory. Do actual human adults listen to that stuff? Seriously? Even Johnny Bravo would be appalled. I looked around the store and saw mostly middle aged feet-shufflers with moderate to severe obesity. Not exactly the target audience for a seizure-triggering version of Oh Holy Night. Am I wrong? It looked like more of a Mr. Mister crowd to me. Mr. Mister at half the volume, and maybe slowed down a bit. It might be a little too edgy in its undiluted form. Ya know? Sweet sainted mother of Luis Tiant!
Speaking of JCP, I have their app on my phone and it makes me feel a little weird. I don’t think it’s manly. If I’m ever in a car accident, and the EMTs discover my dark secret, I’ll be mortified. However… I get some great deals through that thing. On Saturday, for instance, they sent me a $10 off anything coupon. No minimum purchase, just ten bucks like cash. That’s pretty sweet. They sometimes let you stack your electronic coupons, too. Not always, but sometimes. Yesterday I got a nice shirt for work, and the final price was $4.99. Wonder if there’s a way to camouflage my shameful apps, by making them seem to be about beer or auto parts or something? Maybe switch out the JCP icon with a fake one that’s just a drawing of a hamburger? That would do the trick. And if something like that doesn’t exist, then maybe I should invent it myself? Yeah… I barely have the energy to turn my head to the left and look at the clock on the wall.
And speaking of beer, I had a few on Saturday night. It was a one-year dry spell. I’d been considering a return for a few weeks, and pulled the trigger on Saturday. I was going to start back with Stone IPA, but they didn’t have any cold six-packs. So, I went with Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. The crazy thing? There are lots of craft beers I don’t even recognize now. You take one year off, and it’s like a whole different world out there. They still have Pabst, though. And the Golden Elixir. So, I’m not completely adrift in a parallel universe.
I quit because I needed a re-set. I did it once before, years ago. Drinking wasn’t causing me any real problems, I just felt like it was threatening to become too much. So, Toney and I had a few on Saturday night, and probably won’t have any more until next Saturday night. I’m now completely addicted to reading in the evenings, and am not about to give that up. It’s a pleasing alternative void-filler that’s really ramped-up during the past year or so. So stay tuned. And pass the beer nuts.
Last night I was downstairs talking with the younger hooligan. The older boy was in his room blasting some kind of godawful “music,” possibly Primus. And Toney was in our bedroom doing something or other. And somebody opened our front door… Andy, our super-old border collie with the horrendous breath of Satan, began barking and apparently scared the person away. The screen door slammed real hard, and Andy was so worked up he was about to start turning flips in the hallway. What in the hell??
There have been a lot of break-ins in our neighborhood, which is something we’ve never had to even contemplate before. People literally leave their doors unlocked in this place. Cops in our little town probably had the same level of stress as a program director at a classic rock radio station (“Yeah, just keep playing the same shit we’ve been playing since 1978… I’m going to Cracker Barrel.”).
So, it’s a little unnerving. It was daylight, and there were two cars in the driveway. Music was blasting, and there were clearly people at home. Maybe it was just a kid? Who knows? But I don’t care for it. I think 25% of the population is now hooked on pain pills, and desperate. What the hell is going on??
Have you ever been burglarized, or anything similar? Please tell us about it, won’t you?
A few days ago they were serving shrimp for dinner in our cafeteria at work. So, needless to say, I went to McDonald’s. I don’t eat grub worms of the sea. And the girl there, who looked like she was 14 years old, asked if I’d like coffee with my burger and fries. Coffee! That was a slap across my face, so deeply offensive I’m thinking about hiring a lawyer. I mean, she might as well have put the word “Pops” at the end of her question, right? All of it translates to “I think you’re really, really old, like something out of Jurassic Park.” Yes, and it plunged me into a state of sadness and anger that lasted for upwards of 47 minutes. I have not yet reached an age where I drink coffee with every goddamn meal, thank you very much. I’m still deeply entrenched in the cold beverages after noon routine, I’m proud to report.
Have you ever gotten any cashier judgment? I think I’d rather have my TV stolen by a junkie. Sheesh.
And finally, what did they call unfashionable sneakers or tennis shoes at your school? At Dunbar Elementary they were known as K-Mart dobies, or simply dobies. But I have a feeling there are plenty of variations on that same theme. Please bring us up to date on it.
And I’m going to go now. It’s late.
You guys have yourselves a wonderful day.
See you again soon!
Now playing in the bunker
Support us by doing your shopping at Amazon! In Canada? Here’s your link. Thank you guys!
We were broken into once, while we were home, the day before my family took a Disney vacation. They got some cell phones and about $500 in cash, along with our debit and credit cards and drivers licenses. We cancelled everything, got cash out of the bank, got replacement licenses for our flight, and had new debit cards shipped to Disney. I felt like a man out of time, flying without anything but a wad of cash and a drivers license. The break-in was unnerving as hell, but we were probably lucky it happened the day before a trip so we didn’t have time to sit at home and stew about it. They later caught the kid, recovered everything but our cash (he stole a car in our neighborhood too, they found all of our shit in there) and haven’t had any problems since.
In our school they called cheap shoes “Jeepers” or “Buddies” for whatever reason. I weirdly remember a jaunty little number sung on the bus by some questionably musically talented hooligans:
“Buddies, they make your feet feel fine.
Buddies, they cost a dollar ninety nine.”
A cuppa Joe with your hamburger and fries? I don’t think that officially qualifies as “geezerage.” Steady on. On the other hand, you can see why ordering kiosks are replacing people at fast food joints.
When I was a kid, we lived in a rural small town in MN, a few wealthy families but mostly thrifty folks lived there. No one commented on our clothing, it was just not done. The only sneakers or tennis shoes available were hightops sold from a large barrel at the local Gambles store. Black was the only color….not to be worn to school or church. I probably would make a wretched kid today.
Had a bike stolen from my backyard several years ago. It’s really difficult to see what’s in my backyard without going into it (well screened by trees), so whoever got that miserable heavy Walmart bike had to go looking for it.
Other than that, I find that having a large black lab with a scary bark seems to have kept the bad men away.
In my childhood neighborhood, every house on our block was broken into. Not only were we all home sleeping upstairs, but it’s quite possible my mother walked by the room they were in while they were in there. They took a big console tv ( this was 1974 so those tv’s were pieces of heavy furniture) which had a clock on it they unplugged and left. My mother was getting a bottle for my sister around the time. Scary shit. My brother kept a baseball bat and bicycle chain next to his bed after that.
I don’t recall any terms for cheap sneakers.
I suddenly have a craving for an ice cold beer!
“COFFEE!? I’ll have you know Missy, I just started drinking BEER again!” -Jeff Kay 2017
They called the cheap shoes Keds back when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
I’ve been a victim of various property crimes over the years. Had bikes, cars, and what-not stolen. Even got mugged in San Francisco once. Glad I never got hurt from any of these incidents.
“I think 25% of the population is now hooked on pain pills, and desperate”. Since you live in Pennsylvania, I think perhaps that number might probably be a bit higher.
I went for a hike on Saturday, and some young guy I encountered on the trail called me “Sir”. I can relate to your experience at the Mickey D’s.
Yes, KEDS! In my day, Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars were THE shoes all the kids wore. But if you were poor (like my family), we had to wear Keds. And I still bear the scars from all that taunting.
Oh yeah, PF Flyers were another brand that was a bit ‘higher’ on the socio-economic ladder than Keds were!
It’s funny to me that ‘Chuck’s’ are now popular again. But I’ll be darned if I’m going to wear any. I’m too old for that shit.
I had forgotten all about PF Flyers until last week when one of the summer students working for us walked in wearing a pair. They were still clean so I stepped on them to show him how we rolled back in the day.
About two months ago I was in kohl. Keds sneakers were over $45. Sheesh, that seems high to me.
The little blue tag on the back made you ” run faster, jump higher ” We always pealed it off because it never worked.
Was bartending in DC. Raggedy guy came in and the manager ran him off. “Get out of here, you and your Felony Fliers”
A lot of crime now where I live also. They take packages off of people’s porches and get into unlocked cars. And sometimes they try to get into someone’s house.
I get called sir by all cashiers now.
Lots of minor theft in my city… but nothing too crazy. My brother in law used to live a few blocks down from me and get his car broken into about once a month because he’d leave his wallet sitting on the front seat. My sister put him on a small cash allowance after that. Most of my neighbors who park a car in a driveway or on the street instead of the garage have been broken into… but usually nobody goes inside a house. Maybe an open garage, but not a house.
Nothing stolen from me, though. My house is lit up like the 4th of July and has security cameras all over the place. I’m 36 going on 73 with nothing to loose.
My house was robbed 7 or 8 years ago, just before Christmas. They took a game console and the add-ons. They gained access by prying open the back door, which had no deadbolt.
Friends that I met on this very website found out, pooled resources, and replaced the game console (and more). My daughter (then 9 or 10) was speechless.
The people here are a skosh crazy, but they’re also unbelievably kind.
Just a skosh? 😉
Bastards “broke” into my truck a few years ago and stole my golf clubs. By broke, they actually just pried open the sliding back window and managed to crawl inside and unlock the doors. A detective came out and dusted for prints and got some good ones but I was never holding my breath on that one. A week or so later some guy from the other side of town called to tell me my golf bag was floating in the lagoon, but no clubs. Then out of nowhere a few months ago a detective called to tell me they caught the delinquent. As luck would have it, he was one month shy of his 18th birthday when he robbed me, so they had to charge him as a juvenile, which of course means he gets away with it and I never got a dime back. Clubs weren’t worth enough to go through my insurance. Oh for the days of frontier justice…
Quite a while back someone tried to unsuccessfully steal my car at a train station – the door was damaged and the ignition obviously tampered with but I guess they weren’t that good. A couple of years ago in Vancouver someone tried to steal an ~ $1000 mtn bike which I thought was very securely triple locked to the back of my SUV – obviously they had the tools needed to do this. Luckily I was only away for a few minutes and they must have been scared off by the clicking of my truck being unlocked as I approached it.
I don’t recall a name for cheap shoes but my ‘Adidas’ had 2 stripes instead of 3. Reminds me of an episode from ‘Everyone hates Chris’ where the dad (Terry Crews – I love him) was trying to save money buying discount Halloween candy giving out Two musketeers and Butter thumbs.
Came home drunk one night and broke off the key in the lock. Went for months never locking the door.
Decided I needed to fix the lock and start locking the door. Next night they broke out a window in the door to gain entry!
Asked the investigating officer why the burglars went into my freezer. He said “that’s where people keep their drugs, did you have any?”
Like I would tell.
Seems to me that in my junior high school, you were lower than worm shit if you didn’t have Converse sneakers to wear. I of course didn’t have them and wasn’t ever going to have them. My brother was so traumatized by this sort of peer pressure he saved money for ages to buy a pair of Pumas (I think) at great expense. I made do with Sears plastic sneakers. So nowadays I would never consider buying a pair of Converse sneaks based on this experience. This was in a NYC ghetto school back in the early 70s. Obviously the footwear shaming continues to this day.
Get a $99 trail cam from amazon, and an SD card. mount it so it faces your driveway/front door.
Chuck Taylor’s and PF Flyers made your feet sweat like crazy and smell like death! Keds were almost as bad but at least girls wore socks with those most of the time, thus the sweat didn’t soak into the foam rubber insole and hatch bacteria like a petri dish, which is what caused the odor. When I was in junior high (the time of great peer pressure for teenagers) my mother was in the hospital for an entire year with TB. My Dad traveled with his job, so my younger brother and I lived with our aunt for that year (my Dad paid her for this). She was so damn tight that she would buy us the cheapest clothes and shoes she could find so she could increase her profit margin on the cash my Dad gave her. I remember pajamas that fell apart during the first wash cycle they went through. I was so self conscious and miserable!
The town I live in is always in the top 10 in the nation for crime, so you can imagine how paranoid I am about locking doors. There are so many drive by shootings here that I’m always on edge when I’m in my car. And I live in a nice part of town; I hate to live like this. I remember growing up, we never locked our doors…even when we went out of town for a week long vacation. Now days if I go out to work in the yard, I have to lock the doors because we even had a rash of people going into houses while the owners were out in their yards. It’s a sad state of affairs in our world today!
I don’t have the JCP app; I don’t have the Starbucks app; if someone offered me ten dollars for eyeballing and recording everything I buy for myself and others, and GPS tracking everywhere I go, so they can create a profile of who I am and what they might sell me next, I’d consider that ten dollars about 3/4 of a million short . . . my buying patterns are for sale — but not for ten bucks or a thousand times ten bucks.
So I stick with my flipphone: no GPS capability, and no ability to run the apps that my friends think are closed down, but are only sleeping, waiting to track their next move or transaction. It’s the exact same model John McCain carries — the phone he used to call the Governor of Arizona last Friday night and consult with him before stepping back on the floor and reminding Trump what a hero looks like. Sadly, he had forgotten. Oops, sorry: He had forgotten. Sad.
John
Stipulation: John McCain is a war hero. I agree with this.
As a politician he is a piece of shit. If you claim to be a ‘republican’ be that. same if you are a Democrat. This piece of shit is all about making Trump look bad, because the Republican party was too stupid to put forward a decent candidate and Trump is not a politician.
I’m not a Trump lover, but I am a McCain hater. He can kiss my ass, and unfortunately he has declared he will not run again for reelection as it is certain he would lose, I’m glad I do not live in his state.
Sorry to divert the topic of conversation here, but McCain makes me insane.
“Lighten up, Francis..”
Yeah McCain is a POS!
McCain was a war hero but now he is part of the swamp. Douchbag! Go Trump! The harder the establishment and the media try to discredit you the more we love you.
McCain is part of the swamp. Go Trump! The more the media, the establishment and JTB try and discredit you the more we support you!
Who’s ‘we’? Speak for yourself, not any plurality.
he wont run again because he will likely be dead by Christmas from cancer
We didn’t have a special name for cheap sneakers; they were just cheap sneakers. Keds and PF Flyers were the high-dollar name brand stuff. I had heard of Converse, but nobody I knew had a pair.
My seldom-driven “other” car got broken into the other year. I had left it parked on the street in front of my house. Because it was seldom-driven, I had a solar panel in the windshield, plugged into the lighter socket to keep the battery up. I guess the flashing LED on the panel attracted the perp’s attention. There was nothing in the car to take, but he did leave me with a smashed window to fix. Dick.
Having grown up in the city, I automatically lock cars and houses every time. It blows my mind that anyone wouldn’t.
I lock my car and house, too. When you hear a story about some horrifying bloodshed in, say, Numbnutz, Nebraska, you’re bound to get one neighbor that will claim “This just doesn’t happen here!” Well, apparently it did. Lock your goddamn door!
Around here the junkies toss their used needles out of car windows like gum wrappers. Yeah crime is high because of the heroin users. My old neighborhood is a little sketchy now. Haven’t had anything stolen in a while but I suppose it’s just a matter of time.
…well, at least she didn’t ask if you wanted a “SENIOR coffee!” So there’s that.
We didn’t have names for cheap sneakers, but I DO recall the name of K-Mart’s brand back in the day: Trax. We had a ‘K-Marts’ across the street from us when I was growing up. We spent more time there than the employees did. They even had a video game arcade there and everything!
If you’re returning to the beer scene after a year away, watch out for all the damn versions of beers you like that now have fruit shit in them. I have yet to try one that is better than the fruit free original. Not one. Loganberries in your IPA – fuck off!
Never had a home robbed. Did have an unlocked car relieved of all the parking meter quarters once.
I’ve read but not replied about unpopular opinions. I love – love pumpkin beer. Howe sound pumpkin ale is delicious.
The cashier women call me honey. Yeah I am officially old.
Hi Chuck. I think the first of your two sentences is the title of a future Nashville hit. It would have been just about right for Johnny Paycheck, but I guess that’s out of the question.
John
I’ve been called sweety by women younger than me it is derogatory.
Also, I just thought I’d mention that the iPod Nano 6, the newest technology in my IT fleet, just shut down production because it was too inexpensive and easy to use. Who the hell wants a device that will hold 10,000 songs, 1,000 podcasts, and a few audio books, is the size of a half dollar, and costs under a hundred bucks? Well, me for one.
I guess I need to attest that I am not aware of any Senators or Congresspeople who use a nano 6 like mine, although it wouldn’t surprise me if John McCain, who is an American hero, used a Nano to enjoy a little Willie Nelson or Commander Cody while working out in the Senate Gym. Apparently there are some Democrats out here who don’t like Senator McCain, and I’m sorry I strayed into politics accidentally while looking for an example of an American hero who used my brand of flip phone. The point was about old men and technology, not politics.
And I’ve never had my Nano stolen during a Christmas in July sale by a beer-swilling hoodlum wearing Keds. That’s in anticipation of the son of a bitch who plans to claim I’m off-topic.
love,
John
Sneakers? Three words. Red. Ball. Jets.
With shoes like that I bet you could run faster AND jump higher!
Many years ago I was robbed. He got 3 good sized pot plants that I had nurtured all summer. They were outside, in a protected area, that you could only see if you were in my backyard. I know who took them. It was the lawnmower repair dude from ACE Hardware. He picked up my mower, from the back yard of course, and the next day my plants were gone, roots and all. Not a damn thing I could do about it either. Didn’t see him when I went to pick up the mower.
I’d have went “Slingblade” on that bastard!!
Anyone remember Kinney Shoes? Their tag line was “The Great American Shoe Store”, and at least on some of their thick wedge-soled shoes (this was the late 70s), they imprinted the acronym ‘G.A.S.S.’ Well, naturally, we kids loved to cover up the ‘G’ and laugh our American Shoe Stores off!
A little later in the early 80s, when everyone had black-and-white checkered Vans, I could only afford the cheap knock-offs. They did not have nearly as nice printing on them; they appeared sort of dark grey and white. So, I dillegently colored mine in with laundry marking pens (Sharpies weren’t as ubiquitous as they are now).
I gave up even trying to be trendy after that. Thrift store chic, all the way!
Someone stole my “McCain is a douchbag” sign! Best shoe ever was the white leather nike’s with the big red swoop. Loved that shoe!
Since you’ve been away from the craft beers for a year here a few suggestion if you like Dogfish Head 60 and I really like Dogfish Head 60 too. Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, Sierra Nevada 2017 Hoptimum Triple IPA, Ballast Point Sculpin and Grapefruit Sculpin. All very good craft beers.